I Pictured You and Me Always
by asleep on a sunbeam
Summary: Edward and Bella have not seen each other for 60 years. She has married Jacob, and since passed, leaving behind a family who don't know their history. 5 years after her death, her granddaughter Remy begins to learn every secret she ever kept. AU, OC.
1. I

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything in the Twilight universe. Just my own characters. :D

_I see our fate, I see our past  
And all the things that could not last  
It's heavy on these eyes, frozen as I hold this photograph  
It's all we've left that's of any worth  
And it's so much more than a thousand words  
Now in this frame is our only way we can endure  
**Picture, Mute Math**_

**Chapter One**

The beginning is hard to find, when the route to the present is so filled with holes, and patched sloppily and carelessly with lies, folk tales, and falsehoods. When all I wanted to was to know Bella Swan, a person so seemingly uncomplicated with a kind face easy enough to decipher, no one could tell me. Nobody knew about her as a child, her teenage years, or her young adulthood: no one, save for Bella, Jacob, and the last of their friends who still remained. All my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and my brother and sister and I had heard was very vague: "I was born, I grew up, I met your grandfather, and here I am." A boring story with much to be desired.

When my grandmother died, all the secrets of the life that she shunned and buried in her past came forth, piece by piece. No one, not even my own mother, her daughter, knew that such a life existed for her, and was waiting, whenever the time came for her to reclaim it. Her little red house on the beach held in it every whisper, and every inclination of a path, and a love forgotten. All it took was an open ear, and a willing listener.

The floorboards creaked under foot, and some gave way to hiding places full of small treasures; things that no one understood, and therefore ignored. I collected all of these things, decades old, and barely recognizable after being left to rot for some seventy years. The CD still played, but barely. I had to dig through the attic for an old player of my mother's, covered with dust and grime, just to hear it. But upon listening for the first time what was held on the disc, I knew that the digging and the not knowing were well worth it. Buried with the CD was a pair of blue shoes, high-heeled, silky, and stained from being holed underground for so long. I wondered how many times I had stepped over those very floorboards where these things were hidden; how many times my mother, and her family had stepped over them, ran, rolled on the floor, and lay right over these hiding places, not knowing what was underneath them. Too many, I believed. Far too many times.

My grandfather Jacob followed shortly after Bella. We watched him, not believing when he told us that he was okay, just waiting for his turn. We knew that a very short span of time would pass where he would be able to be without her. When he died, curled up in his favorite recliner, it was hard to be sad for his passing because we knew whatever great, divine afterlife he had created for himself, it was centered around Bella. Because of this fact, we knew he would be in no happier place than by her side.

My mother cried, of course, her tears spilling on the collar of my uncle Billy, his new wife standing next to him, bewildered, and at a loss. My aunt Tessa simply stood there, over the chair where he was found, looking down expectantly, as if thinking he would materialize right in that spot where she, for nearly her whole life, knew where to find him. The last of Jacob and Bella's children, my free-spirited uncle Liam, was in the kitchen with the youngest of our family, Tessa and her husband Brian's kids, teaching them magic tricks with a fake coin. I remember standing rooted to the spot in the bedroom I had spent countless nights in, pacing back and forth, my cousin Charlie watching me, his hands tightly wound around the end of the wooden bed post. His knuckles were white, whiter than even the shade his face had taken over the last several weeks. The loss of our grandparents, to him, was tremendous, and he was only realizing after they had gone just exactly what he'd never be able to get back.

"Remy," he called to me, his voice shaky and thick with tears collected in his throat, "I never knew them. I never knew our grandparents." He threw his face into his too-white hands, and his shoulders began to shake. "And now I never will."

We were all feeling this way, all of us kids, who found our grandparents to be an enigma, something to be discovered, and someone interesting to know, whose marriage had created us. We knew virtually nothing about them, but had spent most of our childhoods in the little red house on the beach. We all felt the great loss of them both, in such a short time - that it had happened so suddenly and so swiftly, in the blink of an eye, was an especially difficult thing to process.

I kept a close eye on all their friends and their families, the grandchildren who were our age, and their parents the age of our parents. The Quillayute community was a small one, a close-knit one. We all knew each other, had grown up just across the way from each other, ran across the same beach, crawled over the same hiding spots. Sam, Emily, Quil, Embry… all of them, gone in just months following the deaths of our grandparents. It was as if they all had made an agreement long before any of us had ever been even an idea in their minds; that somehow they knew, years in their future, they would all go in just weeks of one another.

That was years ago now, nearly five, and the secrets that were hidden in the small Quillayute community still plague me, still haunt my dreams. I would play the old, decrepit CD over and over again if I wasn't afraid that at any moment, it might break into dust. I would show the shoes I found to my mother, if I wasn't afraid that she would take them from me, or mistake them for old, and donate them, or throw them away. It's just me now, wondering, knowing, _sensing_, that there was something bigger that was hidden from all of us in the sleepy Washington town. Charlie still pines over the loss, while the rest of our brothers and sisters, and our cousins Clara and Danny move on with their lives. I wish I could do the same, but I can't. Something always brings me back to the little red house on the beach, kicking at floorboards and peeking under dust-covered furniture, hoping and praying that something significant will present itself to me. But nothing has. Not yet.

--

We were collected under the stars, the whole family, in lawn chairs around a bonfire on First Beach. The fifth year anniversary of the near-simultaneous deaths of the elders was drawing near, and the atmosphere in La Push reflected that. There had been more family gatherings than I cared to remember, as if our parents didn't want to give us the opportunity to miss them as much as they missed their own.

My cousin Danny scooted closer to me in his chair, a hotdog and a skewer both held in his right hand. He held them out to me, offering, but I shook my head. "No," I told him. "No more hotdogs."

He shrugged, said, "Suit yourself," and pushed the hotdog on the end of the long stick, and into the brilliant driftwood fire. "I can't say I blame you, though. These little get-togethers are becoming a little tiresome, eh? Two days is the anniversary of grandma's… you know," he raised his eyebrows, and turned the stick over in his hand, "and that was all well and good for the first couple of years, but I'm not coming back here every year to mourn her."

A chuckle escaped my lips, and I nodded in agreement. I wanted to be able to say more, to add more to Danny's abuse of this growing ritual between almost every inhabitant left in La Push, but I couldn't. The only thing on my mind at the moment, much like everyone else's, was Bella. It seemed funny how someone from the outside had come in and brought us all together this way. Not many outsiders made their way in successfully; life on the reservation was simple, and most people who considered themselves to be open-minded still didn't like the idea of someone not at least related through marriage, or a distant cousin coming in and disturbing the peace. But for some reason, and the only reason I could think up was because Jacob loved her, Bella was accepted.

"Yeah," I agreed. "It's been a long time."

I saw Danny peer at Charlie from the corner of his eye, and then roll them toward the clear night sky, dotted with stars. He stuck his charred hot dog inside a bun, and bit down angrily. "You know," he said, his mouth full, his words muffled, "I worry about that kid."

I nodded my head again. Danny didn't even have to say his name for me to know that he was referring to Charlie. As far as any of us knew, he was very different in character than the man he was named after.

"Life on the rez has severely crippled him," Danny said, letting just a hint of sympathy show through his malice.

"He was close to them," I said, shrugging. I saw Danny cock an eyebrow from the corner of my eye. "Well, as close as we could be, I guess."

Our grandparents had always kept themselves at a distance. And sometimes, the words that came from their mouths seemed horribly rehearsed – especially some of the lines that Bella spoke. It was as though they had anticipated the onslaught of questions, the want of stories and folk tales from us as children that they had prepared themselves; prepared what they were going to say to us. Our parents: my mother, Tessa, Billy and Liam, had always dismissed this as their normal behavior. They've only ever lived on this small reservation, they claimed. What do you expect? They haven't traveled far from the exact place they came from.

My mom and her two brothers, Billy and Liam, had all moved away as quickly as they were allowed. Charlie belonged to aunt Tessa, who had stayed at La Push nearly all of her years, marrying one of Embry Call's kids. Charlie had spent more time around the elders than all of us combined. I couldn't say it to Danny, but I felt that he had reason enough to be emotional at that time of year.

"Earth to Remy," Danny said, waving a hand in front of my face. "Where'd you go just then?"

I shrugged. "Nowhere. Just tired, I guess." I wiped my hand over my eyes to clear them of the haze of smoke that had been traveling through us all night. "What were you saying?"

"Just asking if you were ready to move into UW," Danny said, taking the last bite of his charred hotdog. "Got everything packed?"

"Oh," my mood darkened even further, if it were possible, "yeah. Sort of."

"Don't worry," he said, in a tone that was supposed to be supportive, and knocked me with his shoulder. "College is going to be awesome. Best time of your life."

If only I could tell him that, even though it should have been, college wasn't on the forefront in my mind. Tomorrow, after so many years of putting it off, my mother, aunt and uncles were finally going to purge Bella and Jacob's house of everything that remained of theirs.

"_Remy_," Danny nudged me again with his shoulder, "Are you okay?"

I nodded halfheartedly. "Yeah. I think. I just…" I sighed, and tried to bring myself to say the words that were on the tip of my tongue. "It's weird, you know?" How could I possibly put together the right words to tell Danny that I was feeling the exact same things Charlie was feeling as he sat across from us, his face grim, when I knew how he felt about everything – the family bonfires, the simultaneous sadness?

Danny shook his head, his brow crinkled. "No, I don't."

I diverted my eyes from his probing gaze, and stared down at my hands, intertwined and fumbling. I shook my head slightly from side to side, and took in a deep breath of salty sea air. I quickly changed my train of thought. "Moving out," I explained. "It's going to be weird."

Danny patted me on the shoulder, and gave it a secure squeeze. "You'll be okay. Me and Rae are going to be there. New people, new everything. You can get yourself away from all of this." He waved his hand across the air in front of us, creating an invisible barrier that separated us from them.

"Right," I nodded my head. "Right."


	2. II

**Disclaimer:** Don't own it. But the original characters belong to me, obviously.

**Author Note:** I know it's kind of lame or whatever to be posting on Halloween night, but I am so grateful to those of you who reviewed, read, or even just passed by that I decided to do a little quick update before I go and join in on the festivities. Thank you all so much, you've truly inspired me to write this thing, and to keep it going.

_How much would you bet  
that if I tried hard enough  
I would spontaneously combust  
I wish I could disappear  
and run away from all of my fear  
I think I'm coming undone.  
**Constant Knot, City & Colour**_

**Chapter Two**

That night, I slept in a tent on First Beach with Rae and Sofie. My sister was oddly amenable to the prospect of sleeping on the ground, and that surprised me. Usually the diva, Sofie under normal circumstances would never agree to this closeness between she, I, and our cousin in such proximity to nature. But I think she saw the look in my mother's eyes as she asked of her to do this – that pained look that she had such trouble concealing on this day of every year. My mother could've given Sofie that look for the rest of their lives, and Sofie would always do as she asked.

"Rem," she whispered, once the soft sounds of Rae's snoring began. She prodded me gently with her hand through her sleeping bag, and looked directly into my eyes. "I want to be there for mom. Tomorrow, when they clear out grandma and grandpa's house."

"So be there for her," I whispered back.

"What do I do? She'd think I was making fun if I just walked right up to her and grabbed her hand."

"Sofie, if your intentions are honorable, mom will see that." I cracked a small smile in support of her. My little sister, who knew she could care about anyone but herself?

"We were so young, weren't we?" She laid her cheek on the pillow, and moved her eyes far away, to where I couldn't reach her. "It still feels like the world is crashing around us, and it's been five years."

I reached my hand forward to brush the hair out of her eyes, and rested it there on her cheek. "I feel like that might change. Once there's nothing left to remind them, it will be easier for them to move on."

Sofie nodded her head up and down, and slowly let her droopy eyes fall closed. "Love you, Remy."

"You too, Sof."

---

I watched my family from where our tent stood. They were all in a group, but still moving independently of each other toward the red house. My mother walked in first, then my father, and Charlie followed close behind. They all fell in line, no doubt cramping inside the small space, until I was the only person not inside.

I took my time disassembling our tent. Everyone else had already done theirs, and packed them away into the trunks of cars. I took the iron spikes out of the ground first, removed the aluminum poles where they were propping up the worn tent fabric, then folded it all up, and shoved it inside the bag it had come from, but seemed too small to fit anything of consequence now. To me, it seemed that no time had passed at all. But in reality, the short amount of time it should've taken me started out at one hour, then bled into two.

"Remy!" Elijah called from the front porch, waving his arms about his head. "Remy, we're going to get lunch! Do want to come?" I felt one corner of my mouth twitch. Elijah was always so blissfully unaffected by everything. My father stepped out of the dark doorway, and placed his hand on Elijah's shoulder, his eyes squinting down at me through his glasses. He looked like a stranger to Elijah, this dark-haired boy that looked solely my mother's. He smiled bleakly, and his head tilted toward the ground. Though my father knew the significance of this cleansing, as the years piled up, I knew that he found it harder and harder to give a damn.

I shook my head. "No!" I yelled back at him, and saw him nod. He, my father, and our cousins Lily, Blake and Holden formed a line behind each other down the porch steps, and climbed into his car.

I heaved the strap of the tent bag over my shoulder, digging my feet into the sand of the hill where our cars were parked. I popped the trunk of my terribly outdated Nissan, now nothing but an antique, and tossed it into the empty space. I leaned back against the trunk, and folded my arms over my chest. I must have stood that way for 15 minutes without moving; just a statue of myself, and the role I played here.

My uncle Billy and Janice came out holding hands, Danny and Rae scowling at Janice's back behind them.

"Well, Remy," Billy said to me, in his rich, deep voice. "It was great seeing you, kid. But we'll catch back up in Seattle, huh?" He didn't wait for my answer to turn, pulling Janice behind him, and walk to his car.

"Love you, Remy girl," Rae said, pulling me into a tight squeeze. "I'll come by with the truck on Sunday morning, okay? Bright and early." Her attempt at a smile was weak.

"Oh, Jesus," I moaned. "I still have so much packing to do."

"See ya, Remy." Danny pulled me into a one-armed hug, and let me go quickly.

I watched as they walked to Billy's car, just as still as before, and waved to them as they drove away. I took in a deep breath, my eyes focused on the front door, the threshold I had gone through so many times, but now, would feel so different. My legs seemed to move by themselves, one foot in front of the other, until I was standing just behind the doorframe, looking in at my aunt Tessa, my uncle Liam, and my mother, Naomi, go through the ruin that had once been the lives of their parents. Already, there were piles of black trash bags in one corner of the living room, taking up a huge amount of their space. It looked like a great, looming monster, something that would come to life at the drop of a hat.

"Need help?" I asked, self-conscious of my voice and how it echoed in the space of the living room.

"Oh, Remy, there you are," my mother breathed, her hand over her heart. "Could you…" She stopped speaking, her whole face drawn into a pucker. "Could you please go into your grandmother's room with this?" She held a scary black trash bag out at me.

"Sure, mom," I told her, and grabbed the bag from her hand. I now completely understood the power of that look, and its hold over Sofie.

"Sofie, honey," my mom called into the kitchen where Sofie sat at the small, worn wooden table, examining her nails, "please go help your sister."

We rifled through everything - drawers, the closet, and the bathroom that was exclusive to the bedroom. I couldn't bring myself to trash any of it. Sofie was filing through all of Bella's clothes, now moth-eaten and falling apart. She had somehow wedged herself between the closet door and the clothes on their hangers, and was having a hard time getting herself free. She pushed against the inside wall, propelling herself into the depths of the middle of the closet. A whirlwind of dust and debris followed her after her fall, and billowed in clouds throughout the room.

Sofie coughed violently, and fanned the air in front of her face. She got down on all fours, and crawled from where she fell, but got her foot caught in a loose floorboard in the middle of the dark closet.

"Remy," she coughed, "help!"

She continued to inhale the stale air and the dirt, coughing while I coughed, and tried to pry her foot loose. "Hold still!" I told her, wheeling the floorboard around the nail that secured it to the foundation. Sofie fell forward, her elbows smacking against the hardwood flooring, once free.

"Shit!" She exclaimed, her expression bewildered, and her head and shoulders covered in a thick layer of grey dust. "I did not sign up to get eaten by the closet of my dead grandmother." She stood, brushing herself off, and wailed a fake sob as she caught her reflection in the mirror. "My hair!"

I got down on my knees, crawled to the place where Sofie was caught, and tried to shove the floorboard back in its spot. But it was now bent and damaged, and wouldn't fall back into it's place without extra force. "Damn it," I mumbled, and rested on my side on the dark floor. "Sofie, could you give me some light? I can't see anything down here…"

Sofie crossed the room to the window where the curtains were drawn, and tossed them aside, so they flew on their rods. More dust filled the room from the dirty shades. I moved my hand over the displaced floorboard, and back again, and noticed a twinkling light coming from underneath the floor. "What…?"

I lifted myself back onto my knees, grabbed the board with both hands, and threw my weight into ripping it from the ground. It creaked and groaned, and made a loud screeching noise as I ripped it away.

"Remy! What the hell are you doing?"

I didn't answer her right away, and threw the board to the side, then dove back into the closet. I reached my hand inside the cavity, and it fell on several hard objects – light, and smooth to the touch, like books. I grabbed them, selfish, and hungry for another secret hidden beneath the floorboards of Bella's house. I lifted out two of the books, and another, larger one, bound with fabric, and thick.

In the light, I knew exactly what they were.

"Diaries?" Sofie asked, and bent to pick one up.

"And a photo album," I said, and brushed the dust away from the cover.

Sofie pulled at the lock, but soon gave up trying. "It's locked. Is there a key down there?"

I dove down again, reached my hand back into the cavity, groping in the darkness, but didn't find anything. I looked up at her from the floor, and I could feel the hunger engulf me, take over every other inclination. "Look through the drawers. I'll search the bathroom."

Sofie opened every drawer Bella had, and closed each one as she didn't find a key. "Jewelry box," she said to herself. "Look in the jewelry box."

In the medicine cabinet, there was a dish lined with small earrings, a bracelet, and a locket. I lifted the dish, poured its contents out into my hand, and sifted through. No key.

"Anything?" I called to Sofie.

"No," she said back, slamming drawer after drawer, "nothing."

"Shit." I poured everything in my hand back into the dish. A gold locket, plain with just Bella's initials slid off my hand, onto the floor, and popped open. A single, silver key tumbled out onto the linoleum. "Sofie," my voice was shaking as I swooped to pick up the key, "I think I found it."

Sofie shoved the first diary into my hands. I held the small, round key in my fingers perfectly over the lock. Now that I could have it, I wasn't sure I was ready to know what was on the inside.

"Come on," Sofie urged. "Open it!"

I took in a breath. What was written on those pages might or might not answer every question I had ever had about my grandmother. I felt so unprepared for the answers – they had dropped in so suddenly.

I placed the key into the lock – a perfect fit – and turned it clockwise. _Click_. A single, pristine photograph fell from within it, and floated to the ground.


	3. III

**Disclaimer:** Don't own it.

**A/N: **This chapter is split screen.

_That's a strange mistake to make  
You should turn the other cheek  
Living in a glass house  
**Life in a Glass House, Radiohead**_

**Chapter Three**

Edward Cullen was traveling on foot, flying through the forest of Forks on an unusually sunny afternoon. He hadn't been back to this place in over six decades. In fact, he had made it a point to never think about the sleepy Washington town, and had done a good job of it. Until now.

It had been five years to the day that Bella Swan was no longer alive. Being without her for 62 years, he could manage. He knew that somewhere, as he existed, she did as well. The thought comforted him, gave him solace. Even if Bella were old, wrinkled, weary, and had no hair, he would take her. But with her gone, he lost that feeling. The warmth that was once there, ever-present, had disappeared, and frozen into the perpetual numbness he had become familiar with.

_Edward_, he could hear Alice calling to him in her thoughts, falling behind his giant, sweeping strides through the damp brush. _You need to be careful here. I can't see anything – it's not a good sign, that we're vulnerable_.

Edward slowly came to a stop in front of the old white house that he and his family had once lived. It was now overgrown with plant life, windows broken, the white exterior grayed and sagging with age. A subtle wind blew through his hair as Alice came to a stop at his side, her face blank. She had seen this – this ruin. This picture of a life that once was.

She turned her head to the side, looking anywhere but at the house. "I don't even know why we're here, Edward."

"It was in the area," he said flatly, his gaze sweeping over and over every inch of the place before him.

"No, we're supposed to be in Seattle, remember?" She crossed her arms over her chest and stared Edward down. "Now I know why you brought me instead of Emmett or Carlisle. They wouldn't have let you do this."

Edward shook his head, and put on a lopsided grin. "Actually, Carlisle asked of me to do this. He's thinking of relocating back here with Esme while we're in Seattle." He walked toward the house, placed his hand on a worn wooden beam on the front porch, and felt it move underneath his grip.

Alice cocked her eyebrow at Edward, and walked slowly next to him. "And?" she asked, her tone all-knowing. Edward looked back at her wide-eyed, not doing a very good job of disguising his thoughts to her. "I may not be able to read minds," she explained, though she needn't have to, "but I know when you're up to something."

Edward let out a rush of cool air before answering her. "And, I needed to see it for myself. Carlisle knew that. I wasn't the one he wanted to come, but I asked it of him. As a favor." He looked at her, his expression guilty, then away as a rush of wind blew through the trees, and rattled the remains of their home. Edward raised his nose into the air. "Do you smell that?"

Alice shook her head, sniffing at the air. "No. Just smells dirty, like this whole town always has." She smelled again. "Probably just coming up from the ocean."

Edward moved toward the trees that lined the outside of the forest, his gaze probing into the darkness. He took in one more breath. "It just… it seems familiar." After a few moments, Edward turned his back to the forest, and took one last look up at the old house.

The warm late summer wind blew through the clearing where the house sat once more, rustling through the trees, and the expanse of brush. The smell had disappeared. Edward closed his eyes, feeling the warmth that he had forgotten, and lowered his heavy shoulders. "We can go now."

---

"Whoa," Sofie breathed, the photograph from the diary now in her hands, and five inches from her face. "Who _is_ this?"

I grabbed it from her, seeing it for myself. "It must be…" I turned it over, "some kind of magazine clipping or something."

"No, Remy, this is real. Look at the watermark on the back."

Sure enough, there was the Kodak label, printed a thousand times over, signifying its validity. I shook my head. "Maybe there's some explanation in here… a family friend, an old boyfriend, a stranger, someone…"

"A boyfriend?" Sofie asked, her tone incredulous, and an eyebrow cocked. "Mom said grandma never dated anyone but grandpa. So that can't be it. No way. I mean, look at this guy," she held the photograph up next to her face, as if I hadn't quite looked at it yet. "He's… _beautiful_."

---

"Edward!" Alice hissed, creeping inches behind him, hunched over, and crawling among the tall grass that divided Forks from La Push. "Edward, we should _not_ be here! Ever! Do you hear me?"

Edward crept closer to the boundary line, daring himself to cross.

"We still have a treaty to honor! A treaty that you were a witness to, I'd like you to remember. La Push is out of bounds." Despite what she was saying, Alice stayed right behind Edward the whole way, tiptoeing across the line with him. "Edward Cullen!" She grabbed him by the shoulder, wheeling him around to face her. "Do you know what you're doing? Any idea at all? You're putting us at risk, you're putting them at risk… you don't know if they're still out there. There could be a whole new generation of… of _werepeople_ that we have no knowledge of…"

"There's no one, Alice." Edward said the words slowly, meaningfully. "No one. The last wolf died out with Embry Call."

"What?" Alice looked at the reservation, so miniscule, and what had once held such a very large secret. "You didn't tell me that." Edward heard Alice's mind running rampant. _I thought the only wolf they had was Sam Uley._

"I didn't really know it for myself," he admitted. "I had an idea, but now it makes so much sense. Of course there would be wolves in La Push as long as we inhabited Forks, and others passed through. You can't have one without the other." Edward looked at the reservation, his eyes scanning over all of the small buildings by the sea, the winding roads covered in rock. "They must have abandoned their forms to grow old."

Alice shook her head. _How do you know this?_

"Carlisle passed through, almost six decades ago now. He wanted to offer his congratulations on Bella and Jacob's marriage." Alice still looked confused. "We got a save the date in the mail, probably by accident, but it was from Charlie to Carlisle and Esme. When he stopped by briefly, he noted all of the wolves. Sam Uley, Seth and Leah Clearwater, Embry Call, Quil Ateara, Jacob, all of them. It was so inconsequential to me then, but now…

"Today is the day that Bella died, five years ago." It physically hurt Edward to say those words out loud. It made them somehow truer. "Her family, they are all gathered at her home, cleaning out her things. Her daughter Naomi can't stop seeing their faces. She is remembering that Embry was the last to die, a month from today." Edward's brow puckered as he listened in to all the voices held inside the tiny house, focusing on just Naomi's. She was the Black child that was thinking the most information, going over the most painful memories. "I'm not… I don't think she knows. She hasn't mentioned anything once about werewolves."

Alice took a step toward Edward, a frown falling over her delicate face. "How can they not know, Edward?"

He held his finger up in the air, tuning in more finely to the other rooms in the house. A very distinct voice was shouting things, thinking in circles, and making new discoveries. "Bella never told them."


	4. IV

**Disclaimer:** Don't own it.

**A/N:** Thanks again, everyone who read and reviewed. I appreciate it. And while I'd love to be able to give you all a chapter a day, I've got a really heavy work load right now, and I don't want to attempt to give you more material than I've got. This is an especially busy time for me, work-wise, and I don't want to give you half-assed crap. ;D

_Oh, mirror in the sky  
What is love?  
Can the child in my heart rise above  
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides  
Can I handle the seasons of my life?  
**Landslide, Fleetwood Mac**_

**Chapter Four**

_September 12__th__, 2012_

_ It's been almost seven years. How is that possible? Time is moving so fast these days, I can't keep losing track. Charlie called yesterday, amidst all of the construction going on over there – all that noise and hammering in the background. I could hardly hear what he was saying. The most important thing he could've said though, I heard clearly. "Bells, I think there's something over here that you should see." The way he said that, I don't know… I understood perfectly what he meant, and without thinking, I put down the phone, and went straight to the car. He and his new wife Robin were completely remodeling the house. Her idea, of course. Charlie would never think of redoing anything on his own. They were replacing all of the wooden floors, he said. And one of the workers found things hidden underneath the floorboards in my bedroom.  
_

_"I almost burned it, Bella. But, it's yours; it was in your room. Here, just take it." And he shoved into my hands the pictures, the CD, the plane tickets. There they all were, after I thought they had been lost forever.  
_

___That was just like Edward, I suppose, to be secretive, and yet try to stay close at the same time. There was an entire roll of these, at my 18__th__ birthday, but this is my favorite. It represents him the best, I think – that half-smile, and him always looking out of the corner of his eye. I listened to the recording the other day, while Jacob was gone with Sam, doing their shift. Even still, though he's been gone for so long – that _they've _been gone for so long – those boys still feel it a necessity to always be on the lookout, always be alert. I had to make him promise to stop once I got pregnant. I can't risk him phasing with a baby around. That's almost too much to think about.  
_

___I don't know how Jacob would feel if he knew I still had these things, all of these things that he had ever given me. I've taken a page out of his handbook, and hidden them in places where I know Jacob will never think to look. Right underneath his feet seemed like as good a spot as any.  
_

___Sometimes I wonder how different life would be, how different I would be if Edward had come back. I don't know, maybe that's just me thinking too much about things that don't matter anymore. I can't change the past, and I don't want to. I'm happy being married to Jacob. It'll be four years in two months! Seems like a lifetime, but a happy one.  
_

___This is hard to admit. I don't like to think these things, and I don't like to feel regret. All I want is to be happy, and forget everything but my life with Jacob, and our lives together. But I don't think my heart will ever stop beating a little bit faster every time I see his face. There are just some things that even a happy life with someone I love can't change._

_---_

I couldn't speak. My thoughts were running rampant, wild; at a mile a minute… but none of them could push themselves out of my mouth. Sofie stared down at the yellowed paper, looking as though English were a foreign language to her.

"This…" she began, but stopped suddenly, and just pressed a long breath through her lips. "I can't read it." She snapped it shut in one of her hands, and pushed it toward me. "This is personal, this is something that we probably shouldn't know."

"Sofie, grandma Bella is dead. Whatever thoughts are written down in here, I doubt they matter anymore. I mean, it's just like said, isn't it?" I opened the musty diary back to the first page, and ran my eyes over the last lines of the entry. "_…thinking too much about things that don't matter anymore._" I closed it again, and held it against my chest. "This entry was made over 50 years ago. Whatever she has to say in it, I don't think it means anything anymore. At least, not to us."

Sofie sighed, and shook her head to herself. "Fine. Maybe you're right, but I don't want to read anything else. Whether or not it means anything anymore, it still feels wrong."

Sofie had placed the picture of the striking teenage boy on the dresser, and I leaned to pick it up. I held it close to my face, examining every inch of the photograph. It was apparent that it was taken in Forks, with the rich green trees and the overcast sky behind the boy's head. But what was this house? It was a beautiful, white house, not like any of the ones built like I had ever seen here. Who would build this beautiful, clean house amidst the dirty, wet atmosphere of Forks?

"Do you think this is him?" I asked Sofie, my voice small, even for me.

"Who?" she asked.

"Edward," I pressed. "The other man she talks about."

She shrugged. "Maybe. But whoever he is, I doubt he looks that way anymore."

---

On the drive back to Seattle, I found it hard to focus on the road. When Sofie and I emerged from Bella's bedroom, nearly the entire house was bare. The only things that remained were the worn blue loveseat in the living room, and the stripped wooden table in the kitchen. Everything else had been moved, divided between the children, and some of us even got a few things. Bella and Jacob never had much, but what they did have was special, and it all served a purpose. Nothing that they owned was arbitrary – all the furniture was used, Bella's jewelry worn, the books on the shelves had broken spines and faded covers, and all the dishes in the cabinets were never just for show.

"Mom and Dad never did think they needed extra things," I overheard my mother telling Aunt Tessa. "Look at this plate," she held up a plastic red plate with white flowers on it, the cheap paint decorations chipped and faded, "this was mine." A solitary tear rolled down my mother's cheek, and she quickly wiped it away with her finger. She wrapped the old plate in newspaper, and put at the top of a pile of things in a cardboard box.

I went to sit outside in the rocking chair that grandpa had built. It was plain, but sturdy. He used to always sit there, and watch over all of us as we played in the front yard, the corners of his eyes and mouth crinkled in a changeless smile. After quickly sifting through all of Bella's things, I went straight to my car and hid the diaries and the photo album underneath the backseat. I know I probably should have, but I didn't want to show them to anyone. Sofie promised not to breathe a word, but I got the feeling that she felt we should've given them to someone.

We had placed all of the jewelry we could find into an intricately designed jewelry box, and gave it to our mother. She approached me alone on the front porch, and stood behind me, with her fingers wrapped around the ends of the chain that the locket sat on. I felt my throat fall into my stomach.

"This was your grandmother's," she said in a hushed voice. "And before she died, she made me promise to give it to you on your 18th birthday." My mother dropped the cold locket around my neck, and fastened it with trembling hands. "I know it's been a few weeks since your 18th, but… well, you have it now." I looked up at her, and saw her small smile. She kissed my forehead. "Your cousin got her engagement ring on her 18th birthday, and your sister will get her wedding band."

I kept taking my hand off the steering wheel to feel the locket around my neck, and brush my fingertip over the shallow engraving of her initials. _IMB._

"Remy, watch the road, please," my sister pleaded, her hand ready to dart out and grab the wheel, should I drift too close to the median. "Maybe we should pull over, and you let me drive."

"No, you're not driving my car, I'm okay." I swatted at her upraised hands. "Put your hands away."

We sat in a few minutes of the silence. The radio was turned on, but down so low that it blended into the sound of traffic. Sofie sighed, loud of gusts of air, over and over again before speaking. Her voice was cold and restricted. "So, where is that photo album?"

"Underneath the seat," I told her, pointing backwards.

She unbuckled her seatbelt to turn around and fish it out from all of the things piled in the floorboards. Once she had it, she didn't even bother putting her seatbelt back on, and opened it immediately. I heard her take in a gasp of air.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing, it's just…"

I looked over at her, running her fingers over the photographs stuck underneath the filmy cellophane with her mouth open. "What?"

"You look so much like her, Remy."

"No," I shook my head. "No way."

"I mean, the hair is all wrong. You got dad's hair, but everything else… it's all her." She chuckled to herself, and turned the page. "Oh my god," she exclaimed after a moment. "Remy, look. It's him. Again, I mean… Edward." Sofie poked her finger at the page, and ran it over his face.

I turned my head for a quick moment, and surely, there he was, but not just once. Several times. Bella was in a pretty blue gown, and he was dressed in a tux. "What does the back of the picture say? Anything? A date?"

Sofie peeled away the sticky film cover, pulled the photo out, and turned it over. "May, 05," she read. "She was 17, and these are from prom. Why don't we know about this?"

I impulsively lifted my hand to feel the locket around my neck again. "I think a more important question is, why did she keep it a secret?"

---

At home, I paced in my bedroom, waiting for my parents to come back from La Push. Waiting for the gumption to show my mother what Sofie and I had found. Waiting for some kind of sign, some other reason or explanation why it was so important to Bella to write down all of her life's memories, but never share them with her children. I took the first diary in my hands, leather-bound and forest green, and fingered the silver lock on the outside. I had placed the tiny silver key back inside the locket – it rattled and tinkled inside the space whenever I moved too much. I realized soon that I remembered that sound from my childhood. Whenever Bella would scoop me up in her arms, and sit me on her fragile lap, it was the noise that I heard, but had no idea where it came from. For a long time, I thought that was just the sound that her body made when she laughed. Always, that tinkling when she laughed.

I popped the locket open, and let the key fall into my hand. I pushed it into the lock, turned it clockwise, and it clicked open again. I flipped through the pages, and found that nearly every single one was filled from top to bottom. It covered two year's worth of Bella's life, from the day before her 25th birthday, to her 27th Christmas with Jacob.

I fell back on my bed, the diary open in front of my face. I flipped through the pages one more time, expelling all of the dust embedded there, swirling that musty, wet smell throughout the air of my bedroom. This is what I had wanted, isn't it? For the answers to fall into my lap. I was about to learn my grandmother for the first time in my whole life, read her very words, her very thoughts, and yet… I couldn't ever remember feeling a fear so great, like it was threatening to swallow me whole.


End file.
